D's Notebook

Tag: family (Page 9 of 80)

DC Trip Notes

November 1, 2022 /

I had a really good week in Washington, D.C. with L and her classmates. It wasn’t all great, but we avoided the major issues that often plague these trips.

We did A LOT. I took some notes along the way, but I think the best way to share the experience is just to list everywhere we went and add a thought or two as necessary.

Monday: Flew into Baltimore and drove directly to Arlington National Cemetery. We got to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A humbling visit that I think the adults appreciated more than the kids.
Dinner at the Pentagon City Mall (kids ate fast food, adults popped into a proper restaurant).
Then a nighttime, walking tour of some of the monuments and memorials including the World War II and Korean War memorials, Lincoln and Washington monuments.

Tuesday: Breakfast at 6:00 before heading to the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception for 8:00 mass. Props to the priest for knocking it out in 34 minutes.
The kids took a longer tour of the church site while their math teacher and I snuck out to get coffee and hang out on our own.
From there it was back to the national mall for the Vietnam and Albert Einstein memorials.
After lunch the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, which was incredibly moving. I don’t know what made me angrier: confronting the reality of the Holocaust, or knowing as the survivors and perpetrators die off, it gets easier for the lunatics out there to claim the Holocaust either didn’t happen or was exaggerated. We are doomed.
Next out to Mt. Vernon. Not sure what got into the boys, but most of them were total idiots at Mt. Vernon. They asked THE DUMBEST questions of our poor guides. One of many “I’m happy I’m a girl dad” moments. There were several other school groups on the site as well. One group was from the south (based on accents and Clemson shirts several wore) and had a bunch of kids wearing gear celebrating our last president. When a few kids in that group asked their teachers if they could visit the slave cemetery, they were told no. I thought that was very interesting for a variety of reasons.
Following dinner we made a stop and the national harbor and then a walking ghost tour of Alexandria.

Wednesday: A quick photo outside the White House first thing, before the crowds grew.
Then we had a tour of the US Capital followed by a visit to the Library of Congress.
We took the metro a couple stops to near the Washington Monument. The kids ate lunch at food trucks and then scattered at the various Smithsonian museums for most of the afternoon. The parents took a longer lunch at a restaurant.
That evening we drove back into Maryland for dinner at Medieval Times. Which was a lot mentally when you are on day three of a trip. A lot of the adults were looking at each other asking “What the fuck!?!” It took awhile to get into it, but our knight won the final battle so it all worked out.

Thursday: After checking out of the hotel we went to the zoo. We saw the pandas which was about the only thing we can’t see at our zoo here in Indy. Oh, we did see an electric eel get fed her lunch, which wasn’t as cool as I hoped because she didn’t shock it, just yanked it off the hook the handler put in the water.
Another food truck lunch on the National Mall. President Biden graced us by flying over as we ate, which I thought was a nice touch. Pretty crazy to see blocks of streets shut down as police and other emergency vehicles cordoned everything off and multiple helicopters roared in before Marine One descended upon the White House.
After lunch was the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This was L’s favorite stop of the trip, and I loved it too. I could have spent a lot longer here. The slavery section was obviously incredibly emotional. That section of the museum stretches from the beginning of the slave trade in the Americas to Obama’s inauguration. I couldn’t help but think that was fitting since this country began to drift backwards into lunacy in the years after Obama was elected.
Finally we bused out to Dulles to go to the Air & Space museum. Seeing stuff like the Enola Gay, numerous fighter jets, and the space shuttle Discovery was pretty cool.
It was a two hour drive in traffic back to the Baltimore airport and a late flight home. L and I got to our house a little after 1:00 AM.

All this was exhausting, which I think is the point. I was in the midst of one of my insomnia battles which did not help. Wednesday my body finally reset and I was able to fully recharge. Those first couple days were a little rough, though. Even with all my working out, my calves were still barking after the first day of walking.

Fortunately we had nearly perfect weather the entire week. It sprinkled on us once briefly, but otherwise was in the 60s, generally cloudy, and pleasant.

As I said, we had some issues with the boys. I unloaded on the same kid three times. He’s just an asshole and I wasn’t going to tolerate it. He’s lucky he didn’t get sent home because he violated the curfew rules at least one night.

Other than that, the kids were well-behaved. We didn’t have any big incidents. L’s class is so small we could all get on one bus comfortably (St P’s usually has a boy bus and girl bus). Our driver was excellent. M’s 8th grade year they had major issues with one of their drivers.[1] And last year’s class had the bad luck of being in a hotel that couldn’t handle a bunch of middle schoolers and the water literally stopped working one night.

We stayed in Alexandria in a nice Westin. Apparently it was quite a bit pricier than where they stayed last year, but the water worked! There was another school group staying there from Lodi, CA.[2] They were checking out Wednesday morning. I’m assuming they were hitting another east coast city, because that’s a long way to fly for just two days.

My roommate was a friend of mine who also has three daughters. M matches up with his middle daughter – they are still super close despite going to different high schools – so we’ve been friends for 13 years.

One weird thing other parents also commented on: we were constantly turned around or confused about directions. Which seems weird since we all have smartphones and many of us have Apple Watches with compasses in them. I think it was because we were all in the middle of the bus and you can only see what’s out your windows. You never get a real sense for where you are headed or what cardinal direction that is.

The Capital building was in the midst of a major exterior renovation. But there were also repairs still being done from the January 6 attacks. Motherfuckers.

This was my first time in Washington, D.C. It’s amazing how there is so much to do and see in such a relatively small area. We just scratched the surface. There were several areas I would have loved to spend more time in, but I won’t complain about cramming so much into a four-day visit.

Some pictures to close.

  1. I can’t imagine driving a bus in DC.  ↩
  2. This was another Catholic school, and they attended Mass with us. The hotel didn’t clearly mark which group’s breakfast was which, so each morning there were people wandering into the wrong room.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 4, 2022 /

A belated rundown of this past weekend.

FNL

Cathedral finally had their first home game of the year. Since they only have one after this, and it has already been tagged as homecoming, Friday became senior night. Which was a little weird.

I stayed home and listened to an easy 37–6 win over Cincinnati LaSalle. LaSalle has won four Ohio state titles in the past eight years, but this year’s team was kind of dog crap. Or so it sounded on the radio. Until the scrubs gave up a late TD the Irish had gone 11 straight quarters without allowing a score. Granted those were mostly against bad teams, but the defense does seem to be getting better as the season goes on.

KU

After a gritty, gutty, ugly-ass 14–11 win over Iowa State, THE JAYHAWKS ARE RANKED!!!!! AND GAMEDAY IS COMING TO LAWRENCE!!!!! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!!

I missed 85% of the game between basketball, prepping for L’s birthday party, and picking up dinner for the kids. I was able to watch the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, which was not a great experience. KU couldn’t move the ball, the defense was in full bend-but-don’t-break mode, and it seemed inevitable that Iowa State would win, either in regulation or overtime.

Which should have been what happened. But the Football Gods smiled on KU one more time as Iowa State missed a relatively easy field goal that would have forced OT, and the Jayhawks went to 5–0.

I felt terrible after the game, more like KU had lost than won. I think some of that was just the stress of the afternoon and then diving into the game in the worst possible moment. Later in the night I realized KU fans shouldn’t feel bad about any football win. I should be enjoying the W, the record, and the change of tone in the program. Sweating “bad” or “ugly” wins is something the coaching staff and players should be doing, not us fans. The bubble is going to burst at some point and it will be dumb for me to have not enjoyed the success that I’ve been craving for years.

From what I heard on Sirius while driving and read/listened to afterward, it seems like the defense actually played really well. Some of that is surely thanks to an Iowa State offense that isn’t the most efficient in the world. But, even if you give the ‘Clones credit for the three field goals they missed, surrendering only 20 points to a conference opponent would normally be a pretty big deal for the KU defense. It still is a big deal, and it saved the team on a day the offense sputtered, it just got lost a bit in the overall ugliness of the contest.

In the few minutes I did watch I got super annoyed with the ESPN2 broadcast. On KU’s next-to-last drive, the Jayhawks seemed to convert a third down. The announcers talked about what a big play it was, the cameras showed the crowd celebrating, they showed a replay and broke it down, etc. And then right before the next play you saw KU was snapping the ball from five yards behind where the previous play had begun. Only then did the announcers realize that there had been a penalty on KU that wiped out the conversion. Seems like something they or their spotters should have picked up on, right?

ESPN2 didn’t seem to put crowd microphones anywhere in the stadium, either. They would show shots of the band and you couldn’t hear them. When ISU missed the field goal, I assume the crowd was going nuts. That’s what the cameras showed. But you heard the slightest of buzzes on TV. This seems to happen a lot in games that aren’t the marquee matchup of the time slot. For being the World Wide Leader, ESPN sure has a lot of issues getting the basics of showing a game right. For as much as they charge cable companies to carry them, you’d think they could buy enough crowd mics so you get some sense of the environment inside the stadium. Maybe pay some of the blowhards who scream at each other a little less and up the sound hardware budget.

Since this is Kansas football, the Football Gods can’t completely be in our favor. Daniel Hishaw Jr. suffered an awful injury late in the game, rumored to be dislocated his hip late in the game. That sounds insanely painful and is a brutal injury for a guy who missed all of last year.

And then Sunday night Wisconsin fired Paul Chryst. Most folks feel like interim coach Jim Leonhard will get the full-time gig when the season ends. But if the Badgers look like shit the rest of the year, that’s another big job that Lance Leipold has connections to that may target him in December.

I’m not going to sweat that or the Nebraska job. I’m just going to enjoy the seven (or eight?!?! NINE?!?!) games KU has left and hope they can find a couple more wins. I’ll save the angst for once the season is over.

And now we get a whole week to enjoy the lead-up to a very big game against TCU that will get a lot of national attention.

(There’s a TCU guy who goes to my gym. Monday he walked by me and said, “So I guess you’re a football school now?”)

Twitter

I find it damn near impossible to follow Twitter during a football game. EVERYONE thinks they are smarter than the coaches. Doesn’t matter what team/game you’re following. I’ve seen this during KU games, Colts games, and plenty of random games people in my stream are following. The negativity is overwhelming. Where in basketball games Twitter feels like a good way to add context to what is going on in the game, or discuss the action, in football it is an endless stream of people who have been playing Madden for 30 years and think they are smarter than guys who are paid to make decisions.

Granted, a lot of coaches make curious decisions. But not every borderline call deserves a meltdown.

I was reminded Saturday that I often mute a specific KU-related account during games. The dude that runs it shares interesting and useful stuff throughout the week. But during games, even basketball ones, he is SOOOOO negative, that I began muting him on game days last winter. He questions every coaching decision. He rips the refs at every opportunity. He is hateful about opposing fans. Late in the fourth quarter Saturday, Cobee Bryant appeared to have picked off an Iowa State pass that would have ended their final drive. However, replay showed that when he hit the ground, the ball came loose and he never recovered it while still inbounds. It was clearly not a catch and the officials correctly overturned the original call. This guy went off, though, saying how corrupt the Big 12 refs were.

It’s fine to be an irrational fan and always see calls through the prism of your team. But if you’re running an account that represents a website rather than just yourself, you need to calm down and view the games rationally. Don’t embarrass yourself over a play like this, where there is zero doubt the correct call was made.

Kid Hoops

Saturday L had a travel game. They played solid in the first half and had a three-point lead at halftime. Then they played like absolute garbage in the second half and lost by six. L was 1–10 from the field. I think the entire team only shot slightly better than her 10%. Giving them credit for 20% might be too high, though. If Dick Vitale had called the game he would have said it was Brick City with a capital B, baby.

One interesting thing about the game was a girl on the other team may be joining our squad for the next travel season in March. She would be our tallest player, is a terrific athlete, and is a really good defender, but she doesn’t have much of an offensive game. Since we can’t get a rebound to save our lives, that alone makes her a decent addition. Then again, maybe after playing against us she’ll decide she wants to play for a different program. I would argue our poor shooting will give her lots of chances to grab offensive boards!

Sunday L had a CYO game. It was against a team we figured we should beat easily as L’s class has never lost to them in any sport. We jumped out to a 9–0 lead but then ran into issues and only led 14–8 at halftime. L got three fouls in the first quarter and had to sit most of the half, which didn’t help. One was legit, one was marginal, and the third was a crap moving screen call.

We came out smoking in the second half, or at least it seemed like we did. We were much better on defense and ran good offense, just couldn’t get the shots to drop. We got the lead up to 10 and held steady around there before winning 26–13.

I sat on the bench and kept stats. We had 14 steals, which was great. However, six of them were in the first quarter and then we didn’t have another until after halftime. We really should have had 20+ but our girls are soft going after loose balls. They would knock the ball loose then just stand there and watch the other team go after it. Drove me nuts. We got out-rebounded by 2. I think L is destined to never play on a team that can rebound.

There was a call in the fourth quarter than nearly made me lose it. L was defending the ball and ran into a screen. From my vantage point the screen looked solid and legal. Neither L nor the girl setting the screen went flying. But the ref blew his whistle and looked to the scorer’s table. “Foul is on eleven…” and I let out a sarcastic “WHAT?!?!” And just about chucked my clipboard. Our head coach jumped off the bench to argue. L looked totally shocked. Then our mom who was keeping the book turned to us and said “Eleven white, not eleven purple.” The coaches and I looked at each other and laughed. I decided it was a makeup call since L had been called for the illegal screen in the first half, and they didn’t make that call again the entire game. Oh, and both times the screens were legal. Refs…

She had six points.

Wednesday we play a team we’ve never beaten. L has a bunch of friends on that squad, several of which she’s played with outside CYO. She’s pretty excited about it. If we grab those loose balls and can get some rebounds, I think we have a chance.

L Turns 14

Monday was L’s birthday. After her game Saturday she had four friends over. They swam, hung out, and spent the night. It seemed like a good time.

There’s a seventh grade boy who lives nearby who they invited over to play basketball and hang out with them. I couldn’t get a sense of whether one/some/all of the girls like him, as in like-like, or if he’s just a nice kid who lives close. We know his parents a little – his dad actually coached L in soccer way back in first or second grade – but we don’t hang out in the same circles. I give him props for coming over to a house he’s never been to before and hanging out with five older girls for a few hours.

Weekend Notes

September 12, 2022 /

The first full football weekend of the year. I have some notes.

Friday

We had the big 6A #3 Cathedral at 3A #1 Bishop Chatard game Friday. Or the girls did. S and I knew it was going to be an absolute shit show; BC has a tiny stadium in the middle of a packed neighborhood and it seemed like every Indianpolis Northside Catholic was going to go. So we went to dinner with friends while the girls enjoyed the game.

Although it wasn’t much of a game. I checked my phone at about 7:45 and CHS was up 21–0. They got it to 35–0 before half, had a running clock for the second half, and won 38–0. I watched the highlights Saturday, and pretty much every score was a long pass, or set up by a long pass. When you have four receivers who are 6’3”+ and your opponent is small, you have to take advantage.

Of course, Chatard has a better chance of winning state than Cathedral, so not sure the BC fans were smarting too much afterward.

I got home in time to watch the end of the Tiafoe-Alcaraz US Open semifinal. Frances gave it his all, but Carlos Alcaraz is just too damn good. We’ve been waiting for years for the next superstar to come along in mens tennis. Alcaraz might be that dude.

Saturday

Lots of sports.

Alabama-Texas was interesting, surprising, and entertaining. Not the game I expected at all, although I really didn’t think ‘Bama would blow them out.

I caught the end of the Marshall-Notre Dame game. What a disaster for the Irish! Marcus Freeman seems like a really good guy but he’s feeling the heat already about whether he was the right hire.

L had a basketball game Saturday evening. They played a team made up of lacrosse players. These girls were big, athletic, and had this really good offense that kept getting them open looks. But they were not basketball players. L’s team ran them off the floor, at least in terms of the score, winning 47–23.

L had six points on 3–7 shooting, including two sweet drives for layups. On one she got hammered and threw it up-and-in off the backboard as she tumbled to the ground. Her teammates went nuts and she came up with a look like “THAT WENT IN?!?!” Then she missed the free throw… Not sure what’s up with her at the line lately. Her jumpers look good but her free throw form is awful.

I was glad it was not a close game. The refs were ones who never call fouls unless they are hard fouls at the rim. And these lacrosse girls were mega-physical and handsy. Once L was leading the break and a girl was tugging on her off arm the entire time, slowing L down, and the refs didn’t call anything. Need to teach her how to flop.

AND HOW ABOUT THOSE JAYHAWKS!?!?!?! Two-and-oh! Highest scoring team in the country!

We listened to the beginning of the game on our way to basketball and I was regretting finding the Sirius broadcast when West Virginia scored on a 59 yard TD pass, KU had four penalties on their first possession, and then WVU scored again. I checked the score at halftime of L’s game and saw it was 21–7. I was glad I was watching hoops.

When we got back into the car it was 28-all and I was all-in. We heard KU take the lead as we drove home in an intense storm, and then watched the fourth quarter and overtime from home.

What a great win. This was a game pretty much every KU squad for the past decade would lose by 40+. But the Jayhawks settled down after the bad start, hung in there, and dominated for a long stretch. Then they not only won, but got the ultra-rare, double-digit overtime win thanks to Jacobee Bryant’s pick-six.

There was some whooping it up in our living room, and some questions from the girls upstairs about what the hell was going on.

It looks like after getting it wrong four-straight times, KU finally hired the right coach. It was bound to happen eventually. The Jayhawks are disciplined, more talented than in recent years, put that talent in the right spots, are prepared for their opponents, and don’t fall apart the moment they face adversity. A long way to go but things finally seem like they are trending up.

Naturally Nebraska lost about 30 minutes later, Scott Frost was fired Sunday, and Lance Leipold is reportedly high on the list of potential replacements.

I think that bloom will fade, as Nebraska is not going to hire a guy who goes 4–10 this year.

Unless KU wins eight, nine, ten games this year, right?

Sunday

The first NFL Sunday of the year. I missed most of the Colts game as L had to go do her team photographer duties for her CYO football classmates. It was pouring rain so I decided to sit in my car and read in case she wanted to bail early. She ended up staying the entire time so I read a ton and didn’t see much football.

I did listen on the radio long enough to hear the Colts go down 20–3 but then turned it off to focus on my book. We got home in time to see the Colts tie it, then blow a chance in win in overtime. This franchise just does not do opening day well. I believe this is nine-straight opening weeks without a win. So maybe a tie is progress?

Still a super-disappointing beginning to a season in which the Colts were, allegedly, poised to be a player in the AFC title race. At least no one else in the AFC South won. You figure there will be growing pains as Matt Ryan settles in, but he wasn’t the problem on Sunday. At least when I was watching.

I forgot about the US Open final until late and caught the last four games of Alcaraz’s win. The first of many, I would bet.

I half-watched much of the SNF Buccaneers-Cowboys game. That old fucker Brady can still sling it.

Kickball Wrap Up (Forever)

September 8, 2022 /

Well, it’s over.

L’s team went out with a whimper in their final two kickball games, losing 21–7 on Tuesday then getting run-ruled 42–13 on Wednesday, ending the season at 2–5. I believe that was the first time they had a losing record.[1]

These two games were more of the same. We couldn’t kick or field, and it killed us. In the Tuesday game, against the team we beat to start the season, we were up 4–0 after one then gave up eight runs in the second and were dead after that. L went 1–3 with just a double. They against the division champs Wednesday we were never in it, down 9–1 after the first inning.

At least we closed out the game strong. As we came up for our last kicks in the bottom of the fifth our coach told the girls we needed home runs from everyone. The first girl kicked one. The next girl kicked one. The next girl got on base with a single. And then L came up.

Again, she had zero home runs on the season. Only once had she really been close. So far in this game she was 1–2 with a triple. This time she crushed the ball, her best kick of the year, sending it to deep center, between the fielders. But, as I’ve shared many times, outfielders get the ball in much quicker at this level. Didn’t matter. She was on her horse, as they say. The girl in front of her is super fast and L had almost caught her by the time they got to second. She was a step behind her at third and I could tell there was no way she was stopping. A good throw might have gotten her but the relay was off line and the girls scored right on top of each other.

Finally the elusive home run. And in the final kick of her career!

Three of the next four girls made outs and the season was mercifully over.

Although the results sucked I really enjoyed most of the games this season because I got to keep score with some good people. One mom has a son who is in C’s grade and they’ve socialized a bit, so we had some common ground. I had kept score with one dad before and he is more chill than me, so pleasant to work with. A second dad has three daughters the same ages as my three, and we’ve come across each other several times over the years. We had two games this season and great conversations while we watched our youngest square off. And a second mom I had two games with has been both the kickball and volleyball coordinator at her school, so we shared stories of all that comes with that. Wednesday she had another mom sit with us so she could teach her how to keep score (I assume this new mom has younger girls). When she introduced us, she said, “He’s the best scorekeeper I’ve ever worked with. He’ll explain everything and you’ll never get lost.”

Awwww, in my last game I got the best compliment of my life!

If you saw my Facebook post last night, I crunched the numbers for our family. Since M began playing in the spring of her third grade year, our girls played a combined 29 seasons of kickball. That works out to somewhere between 200–210 games. I figure I kept score or coached for 90% of those games, most misses either coming that first season before I was handed the scorebook or because I was coaching one girl while another played somewhere else. That’s a lot of kickball!

To be honest, I’m a little bummed I didn’t keep better records and know exactly how many total games we played and what the family’s overall record is. Alas…

I do know the girls combined to play in two division playoffs, two City semifinals, and five City championship games. M’s team was the only one to win a championship, and that was a shared title after a week of rainouts. C’s team was the only one never to make it to any kind of playoff, something she took personally for awhile.[2] Blame her assistant coach (me) for that. And I do know that our overall record, as a family, was well over .500. That was mostly thanks to an elite athlete on M’s team and then all those home runs from L for five years.

Folks who know us well will recall that my kickball story began the night S and I went on our first date. While making small talk as we waited for our table at dinner, I asked if she played any sports growing up. When she said CYO volleyball and kickball, I laughed in her face. Next thing I knew she was jabbing a finger in my chest and telling me that kickball was a real sport. Pretty sure I laughed some more.

And, famously, the real joke was on me. I married that Catholic girl from Indianapolis, moved here, had three daughters who went to Catholic school, and spent the bulk of their grade and middle school years representing St P’s on the kickball diamonds of Indy.

The first game of M’s fourth grade year, her coach walked over to me and said, “I hear you’re a sports writer. Can you keep score?” Soon I was reading up on the rules so I could understand what the hell was going on. About a year later when the kickball coordinator job came open, that same coach told me she thought I would be great at it. I made the mistake of sending one email asking the out-going coordinator what all was involved in the position. All it ever takes is one email to volunteer yourself for any school role, and for the next four years I ran the program. I helped coach L’s team their first year, although the moms who had all played kickball in their CYO days did most of the work. I helped coach C’s team for five seasons over three years.

It was a pretty good run. I hope the girls have as many great memories from their kickball years as I do.

  1. L didn’t play in the spring of fourth grade, when she decided she didn’t like kickball, and the team may have been under .500 that season.  ↩

  2. Their best shot was having a lead in the last game of the season going into the seventh inning against the team they were tied for first with, and then having a total meltdown and giving up 25 runs to lose. Ugh.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

September 6, 2022 /

I’m guessing this was our last ever four-day Labor Day weekend, at least on the academic side of things. St P’s generally (but not always) gives the kids Friday and Monday off, while CHS just takes the actual Monday holiday off. Who knows what M’s schedule will be this time next year, but she won’t be here, so that means the remaining girls will be on the same schedule for the final holiday weekend of summer in 2023.

L took advantage of her extra day by doing some work for us and family members to earn some money. She’s been drafted as the St P’s football team videographer/photographer and has been saving up for a camera. With a final push over the weekend she was able to order it.

Her first project of the weekend was mowing her aunt’s yard, which she has done a few times. I followed her around with the trimmer, which is too big and too temperamental for her to use. As I was trimming I felt a white-hot heat on my right forearm. I dropped the trimmer, thinking it was in the process of blowing up or something. But I didn’t see any smoke and it started right back up.

“Well, shit,” I thought, “I think I just got stung!”

But I hadn’t seen/felt anything on me or seen anything fly away. I looked around and then noticed, on my nephews’ swingset/playhouse, the biggest wasp I had ever seen crawling around. I got a fly swatter from inside the house and nailed it. Seconds later several more Big Ass Wasps emerged from under the decking and I fled before they could get me.

Fortunately my sister-in-law had a couple cans of wasp/hornet killer. I unloaded one on the nest I could see poking through the frame and left her instructions to hit it again when the wasps returned for the evening.

Not going to lie: the sting hurt like hell. I don’t know if I’ve ever been hit by a wasp before, but this fucking hurt. Even today, Tuesday morning, the area is all swollen, red, and itchy. I’m not sure what flavor of wasps these were, but I’m just going to call them Murder Hornets because they were so big and the sting was so painful. Still, happy to take one for the team rather than one of my nephews.

IMG 5531

Don’t fuck with the Murder Hornets

Friday night was one of the more interesting sports following nights in my recent history.

I had the US Open up on the TV, watching Serena Williams’ final match that began at 7:00. At 7:30 the Cathedral game began, and I pulled up the audio on my phone. And at 8:00 KU kicked off their season on ESPN+, which I had on my MacBook Air.

Super Sports Fan #1 here!

It was a bit chaotic keeping track of everything, but I managed, selectively muting as conditions warranted.

I should probably write more about Serena’s loss. I think of my life not really hitting adulthood until right around 1999–2000. That made Serena the last athlete from my extended childhood or adolescence or whatever who was still active. Just another sign that we are getting older.

Props to her for such an amazing career, for coming back after having an insanely difficult pregnancy and childbirth experience, and for going out on her terms. I couldn’t believe she was still playing doubles with her sister Venus on Thursday. I think that effort clearly affected her in Friday’s match. Then I realized that she just wanted to play with her sister one more time and was willing to sacrifice her singles match for that opportunity. When you’ve won everything there is to win, you get to pick how you say goodbye.

Cathedral fell behind 13–0 but then ripped off 35-straight points for a 35–21 win. The game was three hours away so none of the girls went. The Irish had a ton of injuries going into the game, so played a number of kids who had not played the first two weeks. This week they play their big-time rivals BC, who are ranked #1 in 3A and just lost the the #1 4A school on the final play of the game.

KU rolled Tennessee Tech. Which should be expected, and I know non-KU fans are making fun of us Jayhawks for being excited about the win. Never forget this is KU football, a program that has found a way to do the un-doable for decades. Pounding an overmatched opponent is never a given for Kansas, and while one or two more wins is likely the max we can hope for this year, at least we checked off the easy win.

The team looked better, with more playmakers on defense than I can recall. But they still lack depth and things will be very different this week against West Virginia and pretty much every week for the rest of the year and the competition keeps getting tougher and tougher. But this game was the baby step we needed.

Saturday we headed up to S’s aunt and uncle’s in the morning. They live on a lake and offered to take the girls out to ski. M took a brief run and had no issues. L tried but could not get up. C was annoyed about having to wake up early on a holiday weekend and stayed in the boat. We took a nice trip around the lake and got off the water just before rain moved in.

Later in the day L had a basketball game. They were playing a team they’ve played many times. That team plays and practices all year, and added another good player since our last meeting. We were down 13–0 to start then went something like 5–22 from the free throw line and lost by 15. L alone was 1–6 from the line. She was 0–4 from the floor but had three rebounds, three assists, and three steals. She hit one shot that came after a foul was called away from the ball and was super annoyed by that. I was super annoyed she was missing so many free throws after all the practice shots she put up over the summer.

Sunday we had the local family over for our annual Labor Day gathering. It never got too hot or humid and the rain held off, so it was a pleasant day around the pool. I stay the hell out of the pool when the nephews take over. It’s more fun to drink and watch than constantly babysit your kids so they don’t sink.

Monday was your standard, lazy Labor Day. I watched some tennis – Frances Tiafoe upsetting Rafa Nadal was obviously the highlight, a truly enjoyable match. I was bummed Danielle Collins lost, but we don’t need to go into details about that.

(Another quick aside about tennis: Nick Kyrgios beating Daniil Medvedev Sunday was also entertaining. Not sure I’ve ever switched my opinion on an athlete as quickly as I have about Kyrgios. I thought he was a lunatic who needed to be shut down at Wimbledon. Now I think he’s one of the most entertaining, compelling, and interesting players on the tour. Not sure I necessarily love him, but I do root for him to stay in tournaments because they are a lot more fun with him on the court.)

I read a lot, we did some shopping as we prep for our next big trip, and we did some cleaning around the house.

Otherwise a pretty chill holiday weekend.

This morning we were socked in by low, thick clouds. When my alarm went off at 6:50 and it was still pitch black my first thought was, “Did I sleep through a month and it’s October 6?” Just a tangible reminder that summer is over.

Weekend Notes

August 29, 2022 /

Kind of a weird weekend, or at least it got off to a weird start.

L threw up all night Thursday and into Friday morning. I heard her throwing up again around 6:45 and went running into her room only to discover it was M across the hall throwing up in her bathroom.

Just like old times! At least they are old enough now not to puke in their beds.

Both girls stayed home from school, L feeling like crap all day. M threw up one more time around 11:00 but then acted like she made a miraculous recovery and started bugging me about going to the CHS football game that evening. I kept saying no, she would pout and ask again, so I finally told her to leave me alone and ask her mom. Not sure what was involved in that text exchange but she was out the door as soon as I left to pick C up. More on that later…

C had three friends come over after school and I drove them out to the far westside for the big #2 CHS vs #3 Brownsburg matchup. BHS jumped all over Cathedral early, getting up 21–0 thanks to a blocked punt, an Irish fumble, and two long drives. CHS ended the first half and opened the second half with long touchdown passes to cut it to 21–14. But they immediately gave up a 78 yard TD pass and only a late TD made it a respectable 42–35 loss. I’m not sure when the last time CHS was behind by 21 points. It’s been at least three years. It’s the first time they’ve lost to someone other than two time defending 6A champs Center Grove since November 2019.

It was a thoroughly respectable loss. BHS is a really good team.[1] But CHS looked kind of bad. They lost their entire offensive line and nine starters on defense from last year’s team. That shows. The o-line can’t protect their stud QB, who was running for his life all night and got hurt late, or open holes for the running game. The d-line can’t get pressure, which was a problem against a good team like BHS. Their best defensive player, who committed to Purdue on Sunday, was getting double and triple teamed all night because none of the other linemen could do anything. There’s a lot of work to do if the Irish want to have any chance of competing this November. Especially in class 6A.

Something new for me: watching a game when one of my daughters is dating a kid on the team. M’s boyfriend starts, although he’s on and off the field quite a bit. I’m honestly not sure what his position is. He’s usually lined up across from a receiver, but sometimes he’s inside, sometimes he’s outside, and sometimes he’s positioned more like linebacker. Anyway, each defensive play I was checking if he was on the field and where he was at. I kept shuddering because for some reason he – a 5’8”-ish kid – kept getting matched up with BHS’ 6’2”+ receiver. Why they never threw at him I don’t know. Thankfully G was not in coverage when the kid got loose for that 78 yard TD. G made a few tackles but it was not a great night for the defense, so I’m sure he was upset with their effort.

As for my oldest daughter…at halftime I walked down to talk to some friends. I noticed an ambulance with the lights on near the other end of the visiting stands. A few minutes later C called me. Which was weird. My girls never call me, they always text.

When I answered she said M had passed out and was getting checked out by the paramedics. She passed her phone to M who said “Hi! I’m fine!” She claims she just got hot in the super crowded CHS student section and felt like she was going to pass out, so her friends ran over to get the paramedics. They checked her blood pressure, pulse/ox, and blood sugar. Everything was normal but they asked her if she wanted to go to hospital. She declined, signed a form, and watched the rest of the game without incident.

While I’m sure the heat and crowd contributed, I bet throwing up twice and not eating or drinking much all day didn’t help.

It could be worse: some of her best friends (who were not at the game) tested positive for Covid over the weekend. Although who knows, she could be next…

Fortunately the rest of us avoided the stomach bug. Not sure how just those two got it, and how it wiped L out for like 48 hours while M was back to normal pretty quickly.

That meant the L couldn’t play in her travel team game on Saturday. Sounds like she missed a doozy. Her team lost by three in double overtime. Our best player fouled out with 1:00 left in overtime. According to the texts I got, she wasn’t anywhere near the play but the ref gave her the foul. Apparently her grandfather nearly got kicked out of the gym afterward. Now I’m glad I missed it!

L was well enough to go to the required tryout for next year’s team on Sunday. She said she felt sluggish and didn’t play well. I got there in the final minutes of the scrimmage and I saw her blow by a girl, score, and get fouled, so that looked good.

  1. They have a former quarterback at the University of Kansas, so you know they’re legit.  ↩

Weekend Notes

August 15, 2022 /

Some catchup from the last few days.

Shots Fired…Literally

Friday night we had our old neighbors from Carmel over for dinner. They like to rib us about moving from Carmel, which has little violent crime, to Indianapolis, which like most big cities has some issues. I joked that we hadn’t heard any gunfire from our home in over a year.

Later that night I was in bed, asleep, when I heard one of the girls talking to S. I rolled over and M and C were standing there. I heard them say something about hearing gunshots and police being outside our house. My eyes popped open and, indeed, there were flashing lights reflecting off the trees in our backyard.

I raced downstairs as C told me what she had heard and seen from her bedroom window, which looks out the front of our home. She said at 11:30 she heard a bunch of gunshots then saw a car make a quick U-turn on the main street our house sits off of.

When I got downstairs there was a police car blocking that street directly in front of our house, about 200 feet from our front door. Half a block down there was another police car, half a block beyond it a third. We could see police officers walking around with flashlights as if they were searching for evidence. Soon we saw them placing little evidence markers on the road. This was going on literally within shouting distance of our house, we’re talking 400–500 feet.

This was no bueno.

M must have been watching a lot of police shows lately, because she made the observation that no one must have been hit/hurt because there were only three police cars and no ambulances. I thought that was a pretty astute comment from a privileged kid like her.

As we watched the activity in the street, I pulled up the history from our front door camera and rewound backwards. Sure enough, at exactly 11:30, the quiet night was interrupted by a serious of gun shots. Seconds later you could see the lights of the car making the U-turn in front of our house. But no other cars ever appear.

The cops did their work for about an hour then left. It was a little hard to go back to sleep after that excitement.

Saturday morning I checked Nextdoor and saw a post from one of our neighbors. They had gone out and talked to the police when they first arrived. Based on what the cops found, they were assuming it was just a single car shooting into the air rather than shooting at another car, someone in a house, etc. They found 12 shell casings, which seems excessive to me. But I’m not a gun person. Maybe that’s a normal thing to do on a Friday night. Thankfully it doesn’t seem like the bullets hit any homes and, since it was 11:30 PM, there weren’t any people out doing yard work, grilling, or just hanging out as we had been doing a couple hours earlier.

There wasn’t a thing about the incident on the news Saturday. There were at least two murders in Indy that night, so some idiot emptying a clip on a dark street without any injuries didn’t move the needle.

An unsettling reminder of the world we live in.

Oh, L slept through the whole thing. And S didn’t get out of bed. I believe her comment to the girls was, “Tell your dad about it,” and went back to sleep. Apparently they are less affected by nearby gunfire than the rest of us are.

Fan Girling

The night before the first day of each school year, CHS seniors gather to TP the Hill. They take thousands of donated rolls of toilet paper and throw them over all the trees that line the main entrance to campus. Then on the morning of the first day, the students like the street and greet families by tossing toilet paper at their cars. It’s a mess, but it’s fun.

Wednesday night I volunteered to help serve food at the picnic before the TP-ing. I was given the highly coveted task of handing out hamburger buns. It was fun to see some kids I hadn’t seen since middle school, and to be greeted by M’s many friends. I even had a nice interaction with her boyfriend.[1]

If you are a college hoops recruiting junkie you probably know that, by one measure, the top senior in the country is in M’s class. He showed up, surprisingly, wearing a Team USA t-shirt (from a camp he was cut from) rather than any gear for Michigan State, where he recently committed. When he came through the line I offered him a bun, he accepted, said “Appreciate you,” and moved on.

A few minutes later M came running over.

“I saw you Fan Girling when X came by!” and made a face like I was starstruck.

I shook my head, “I was not ‘Fan Girling’, I just gave him a bun. And I’m disappointed he didn’t comment on my hat.” I was wearing my KU national champs hat. Not sure if he even glanced at it.

Anyway, I thought M accusing me of Fan Girling was pretty funny, even if inaccurate. I figure it was payback for me making fun of her Harry Styles obsession. Which is fair.

Hoops Tryouts

L had her tryout for the St P’s team Saturday. She said that she barely got to play. They mostly used her to set up other people so they could see how they played. She understood why – the evaluators know who she is, what her game is like, and that she had another tryout the next day – but was still bummed she didn’t get to ball more. That season starts in about a month.

The Sunday tryout was for a Cathedral-sponsored team that will play in the gap between the CYO season and when travel ball picks back up in March. She is excited to play with some girls she met at camp in June, and to learn from the high school team’s staff.

Her travel team jumps back onto the court this coming week, playing in a two-month Back to School league. She will re-tryout for that program in two weeks, although she will stay on the team she played for this past year. It’s just a way to get another $30 out of families.

Her (likely) final kickball season starts on Tuesday.

So Long Oooey Pooey

This weekend Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis announced that it was splitting into two schools. IU will take over most of the campus and call it IU-Indy. Purdue will still control the engineering and computer science programs, likely as an extension of the West Lafayette campus.

The reason given was simple: branding. While IUPUI billed itself as offering the best of both schools, no one really got it. And the name was endlessly mockable. I guess this will help them get more applicants/enrollees?

I did most of my graduate work on the IUPUI campus, but don’t have any real connection to the school. I doubt many people have strong feelings about the split. I think we will all miss the name, though.

  1. It is official, she has used the term around us.  ↩

Weekend in KC

August 8, 2022 /

A very good weekend trip to Kansas City. Other than the heat, of course.

Travel

It was probably our easiest drive between Indy and KC we’ve ever had without driving at night. A few slowdowns, a few standard trucks passing each other or slow people in the fast lane issues. But otherwise it was kind of smooth sailing.

One side effect of me switching to a smaller car without a third row is that trips like this can be problematic. Our girls bitch when they have to ride 10 minutes to dinner three-across in the back seat. Eight-ish hours was going to be a shitshow. We decided that the expense of renting a van was worth the reduction in bitching and increase in comfort for all. That was a good call. Plenty of room for our bags, the girls weren’t on top of each other, and we got pretty solid fuel mileage.

Speaking of fuel, it saddened us that the father we got from Indy, the more the price of gas fell. I mean, it was good for this trip. But sucks that it reinforced the reality that Indiana typically has some of the highest gas prices outside of California.[1] Anyway, when I bought gas in Lawrence on Friday, I was paying a full dollar less per gallon than in Indy. Joy.

OK, onto the trip itself. Some of you know many of these details but I’ll go ahead and act like no one knows nothing.

Thursday

We mixed things up and stayed at the Hampton Inn near the Power & Light District rather than on the Plaza. We haven’t ever checked out downtown on any of our trips other than driving through, so it was cool to see the many changes that have taken place down there in the 19 years since we moved to Indy. The streetcar stop was directly below our room. More on that later.

Thursday night we met my aunt and uncle for dinner at Parlor. The food we sampled from the various vendors ranged from ok to very good. When I walked to the bar to order our first drinks, I scanned the QR code to pull up the drink menu. The bartender said that if I was a quick chooser I had two minutes to still get happy hour prices. I asked her if she had anything local. She began to rattle off the list and when she said “Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat” I said, “Two please!”

As she poured them she commented how Boulevard really isn’t local anymore since they got bought out awhile back. This very nice looking young woman sitting at the bar next to me shook her head and said, “They’re sellouts.”

Oh my!

I asked that they not hold it against me and took my beers and fled.

Friday – KU

Friday was our KU campus visit. This was my first trip back to Lawrence in 12 years, and only my second in 19+ years. Which seems crazy. It’s just hard to carve out a day in Lawrence when we have generally taken these quick trips to KC and are trying to see as many people as possible in a compressed time frame.

I honestly don’t remember the last time I took I–70 to Lawrence. It’s been well over 20 years, for sure. The girls were totally confused by the concept of toll roads.

We arrived on campus a little early, so I drove by a couple of my old apartments and then we hit the bookstore to scout out possible purchases for after the tour. M quickly piped up, “KU has way better shirts than anywhere we’ve been so far.” Score one for the Jayhawks! She was right. I think the KU bookstore had more shirts than the IU and Purdue bookstores combined.


The KU admissions presentation was outstanding. M agreed with me that it was the best of the six we’ve been to, so it wasn’t just a biased KU alum’s opinion. Most of that was because of the guy who was leading the presentation. He was great, funny and full of personality. He was a stark contrast to the lady who presented at IU last Monday, who basically read from a script and overused the word “beautiful.” KU really hits hard on being an AAU accredited school, and that got M’s attention. I told her IU and Purdue are also AAU schools, so that means KU has many of the academic benefits of those schools without the sheer size. In many ways it is the perfect blend of a Big 10 school and Miami, Ohio.

Between the shirts, our peeks at campus, the presentation, and the fat chunk of scholarship money M’s grades qualify her for, she was professing some interest. I’ll admit while I thought it was a long shot, I was getting excited about her at least applying.

Then we took the tour.

Listen, it was nasty hot and humid. It was a Friday late in the tour cycle. Our entire group seemed a little low energy. But the tour kind of sucked. Our guide wasn’t very good, he skipped some of the best parts of campus, we didn’t go inside a single building, and he did more telling than showing about the things that make KU an interesting option.

The tour walked out to a stopping point where families could grab a bus that would take them to stops at professional schools if they had appointments, dorm tours if scheduled, and eventually back to the Union where we started. We waited around for about five minutes and decided to hoof it back rather than wait, as everyone was getting hungry. I think the walk up the Hill in the heat extinguished any interest M had in KU. We were all dripping when we got back up to Wescoe beach.

On the way to the Union I walked us through the main part of campus the tour had missed. M said, “Why didn’t he take us here? This is awesome.”

Unbelievable.

I also corrected a few “facts” our guide had wrong. He was a nice enough kid and I’m hoping he was just off his game Friday.

In M’s welcome bag was a 20% off the entire purchase at the KU Bookstore, so we did some shopping. I was in heaven, but only walked out with a couple stickers. They had some amazing gear but I have purchased like eight KU shirts already this year. The girls all got nice sweatshirts, though.

So I don’t think M will be a Jayhawk. But L is interested so maybe we’ll try again in four years!

My brain was literally cramping last week trying to come up with a place to eat lunch while in Lawrence. Which of my old favorites should I hit? I reached the point of mental paralysis and consulted with brother in Jayhawkdom E$, who suggested the Ladybird Diner. This was a brilliant rec: the food and environment were fantastic. If you’re ever in LFK, you should stop by.

After lunch we did some more driving around and then made the pilgrimage to Allen Fieldhouse. This was my only misstep of the day. I didn’t research how to partake in all the new exhibits at the Fieldhouse. I figured you just walk into the building and you’ll see everything. They do have the little museum display in the main entrance. But the main part of AFH was closed off, so the girls couldn’t see the court. I assumed this meant the area with the original rules of basketball was also off limits for the day. It wasn’t until that evening that I read those are in a whole other building that may well have been open. L was bummed she didn’t see the court, but we did get to see the latest national championship trophy.


On our way out of town we swung by the house I lived in for two years, aka The Big Yellow House. Which is now brown. If you know, you know. Naturally there was an accident at 23rd and Mass when we were there. We used to call 911 at least once a week because of accidents there. Some things never change.

Friday night the Murray family graciously hosted many of you. It was great to see all of you who were able to make it.

Saturday – Raytown and More

Saturday morning we took the streetcar up to the River Market. I ate many lunches and dinners in the River Market in my adult KC years. But I don’t think I had been to the farmers market since I was a little kid. It was fabulous! I remarked at how when I was a kid it was pretty much all local Italian vendors. I did hear one old lady speaking some Italian Saturday. I was amazed by how many world cultures were represented in the area now. A Vietnamese place. A Thai place. The spice store with all kinds of exotic, wonderful smelling spices on display. Vendors selling all kinds of Asian and Latin foods. Good for KC.

We took the streetcar back down to Union Station and walked around there a bit. I showed the girls the bullet holes that remain from the Kansas City Massacre. I found that more interesting than they did.

A few weeks back M said it would be funny if we went to the Taco Bell I worked at in Raytown on our visit. That jogged my memory that I had read about a really good barbecue place that was right around the corner. We met the Nesbitt family and Stacey B at Harp Barbecue for lunch. Sure enough, the old TB building was still there, although now it is a Chinese takeout place. M asked if that was the actual building I worked in. Hell yes, it was! All it had was a new coat of paint.

Harp’s was terrific. I had the burnt ends which were top notch. The sides were solid. The rest of the family had pulled pork which they all approved of. The beer from Crane Brewery was good, too. A little oasis of culture in a town not always known for that.

After lunch I drove the girls by the three houses we lived in, my old high and elementary schools, and numerous car washes I used. We popped into a CVS and the girls were disappointed I didn’t buy any of the RHS swag they were selling.


After our Raytown sojourn, we headed to the Plaza for the obligatory shopping trip. It was sales tax free weekend in Missouri, which made the stores extra packed. Not the most fun on a day when the heat index was something like 107.

While on the Plaza I got stopped by a guy who was with Amnesty International trying to hit me up for a donation. I interrupted him and thanked him but said we were late to meet someone. That shut him down. I turned and there was a red light greeting me. So we just stood there awkwardly until it changed to green. The girls were trying to sustain their giggles the entire time.[2]

For dinner Saturday we met the Vogel family. Our first choice was going to have trouble seating us so we bopped down the street and went to Carmen’s. It was a great meal with great friends. As much as I miss the Plaza, I think Brookside is the part of Kansas City I miss most. We just don’t have an area like that in Indy. Everything that is similar is either just a couple notches bigger or smaller and lacks that special Brookside feel.

That was our weekend in Kansas City. Other than the heat and not getting into see Allen Fieldhouse, I have zero complaints. I think the girls all enjoyed it as well.

  1. This is mostly due to our gas coming from refineries to the north, which increases the transportation cost to get that gas to us. Plus those refineries are old and both constantly shutting down for repairs and under some more significant environmental restrictions.  ↩

  2. That’s only my second-best effort at avoiding solicitors on the Plaza. Years ago I was stopped by a very nice young lady. She asked how my day was going. I grabbed my stomach and said I had just eaten too much barbecue (truth), my stomach was a little upset (not true), and I needed to find a restroom. She encouraged me to find one. I walked in mock distress until I was out of her sight. Then I laughed and laughed.  ↩

Life and Times of a Rising Senior

August 2, 2022 /

A busy week for M. Two college visits and senior pictures have all been checked off her To Do list.

We went to Purdue last Wednesday and then IU on Monday. Both trips went well.

She liked Purdue more than she expected, and when we left she felt like it had pulled even with Cincinnati as her co-favorite. Or at least a school that would definitely be on her list for a second visit and more research.

We’ve heard tons of great things about Purdue, especially how they have really updated their campus from the rather boring, typically engineering collection of buildings it used to be. Perhaps that set the bar too high for me, because while I thought everything was just fine, I wasn’t awed by anything I saw. Lots of new buildings, to be sure. But it still felt rather utilitarian to me.

We both liked how they broke up the visit. We started with a 45 minute tour of part of campus, landed at the welcome center for the hour-long admissions presentation, then went out for another hour or so of touring campus. That was a good way to break up Purdue’s rather sprawling campus. Our tour guides were great, talking almost the entire time. And our admissions presenter was one of the best we’ve encountered so far.

Purdue has a lot going for it. Maybe too much, in fact. Last year it had way more freshman enroll that their algorithm expected, and the school had to scramble to find housing for everyone. Perhaps it was because of that you have to make a separate appointment to tour the housing options. We could have squeezed that in, but it was hot and humid and we decided to save that for a second visit, possibly popping in on people M knows who will be students at Purdue in the fall.

Purdue is the closet school M will consider, maybe 15–20 minutes closer than IU. Despite its engineering school rep, it can offer a great education even in the more liberal arts affiliated programs. And they’ve kept tuition frozen for over a decade now. It made sense why M liked it so much.

Then we hit IU on Monday afternoon.

We lucked out and avoided big storms that had cancelled the morning tours and even got about an hour of pleasant weather before the heat and humidity came crashing down again. We parked right by S’s sorority house and found the brick with her name on it, which is always fun.

The new IU welcome center is located in the remodeled building where I took my three graduate courses on the Bloomington campus. It was fun for me to have a personal connection. “I took classes in this building!” They went with the more traditional sit through an hour presentation and then get out and walk for 75 minutes format.

Our tour guide was great. Let’s see if I can remember everything she told us about herself. She’s in the Kelley School of Business, one of the top business schools in the country. She’s on a pre-law track with two minors, one in computer science the other having to do with data analysis or something. She’s in the honors college. She gives tours. She tutors both for the football team and the honors college. She’s in Panhellenic government. She’s in the campus Catholic org. And she sings in the campus choir. I might have left something out. Girl is busy, and seemingly going places! I thought about asking if she had time for a boyfriend but realized that would both come out wrong and sound super creepy coming from a 51-year-old man.

I’ve always loved IU’s campus. It reminds me a lot of the KU campus, just without the big hill in the middle. Acres of gorgeous, tree-lined paths. Big, beautiful limestone buildings. Downtown right across the street from the main campus entrance. It’s very much a proper college environment. You shouldn’t pick a school because of what it looks like, but it sure makes a great impression.

There was less talking and more general walking and looking around on this tour compared to Purdue’s. Even M has picked up on how the whole spiel is pretty much the same thing at every school, with some tweaks to highlight each one’s particular strengths. She has realized that her next step is to make a list of her favorite schools and begin doing research to compare how the meals plans work on each campus, what the academic advising programs are like, etc. to cut through the marketing and get closer to figuring out what school meets her needs the best.

When we completed the tour and began walking back to the car, she said, without being prompted, “I like this more than Purdue.” Which I expected.

One hangup I believe I’ve mentioned before is that she doesn’t want to go to the same school as a lot of her high school friends. Although we’ve told her many times that on a campus of 45,000 students she will not see the 5–10 people she went to high school with very often either at IU or Purdue, that remains a sticking point, and a big reason she likes Cincinnati so much. It seems like her friend group will send more people to IU than Purdue. So that’s going to be an entry in her spreadsheet. We’ll see if it matters when it comes time to make a decision.

After five campus visits I believe M’s power rankings look something like this:

1A – Cincinnati
1B – Indiana
2 – Purdue
3 – Miami (OH)
4 – Xavier

A bigger gap between two and three than between the top three schools.

Of course, she has one more visit remaining. It just happens to be to a school that A) I attended and B) that won the NCAA division one men’s basketball national championship four months ago.

She squeezed in her senior pictures on Sunday. I didn’t realize what a big deal these were until this time last year, when her friends a year older than her were going through the process. At Cathedral you have to go to the “right” photographer, a woman who took family pics for us about 10 years ago. I went with M to the planning session with the photographer last week. She could not have been more organized, helpful, and fun. M was pretty well prepared already but left with a clear plan for what to do in the five days before her pics.

I stayed the hell out of the way Sunday. There was enough stress in our house before she left that I wanted nothing to do with the actual photo shoot. Luckily my presence was not requested, although C did go along with S to help and watch.

I guess it went very well. She lucked out and got decent weather. It was in the mid–80s but the humidity was tolerable, it was a little breezy, and they were late afternoon/early evening so it was getting cooler through their session. She was happy when she got home. I guess we’ll see in a few days whether it was worth all the time, effort, and money.

I miss the 1980s when you just went to a photo studio with one outfit, sat for 20 minutes, and then ordered one or two shots a couple weeks later.

Family Notes

July 25, 2022 /

It has been a lazy few days around our house.

M spent last week in Michigan with one of her best friend’s families. She seemed to have a great time. Boy was the house quiet without the most talkative sister around. Kind of a preview of what awaits us next fall.

I had big plans to do something fun with her sisters while she was away, but every day one of them had something pop up that prevented that from happening. C had two more driving lessons, watched two of her cousins part of one day, and cleaned for one of her aunts another day. L pitched in with that aunt and mowed her yard for her. L and I got a couple workouts in between her hanging with friends.

Saturday we had most of L’s travel basketball team over for a season-ending pool party. Despite a forecast for a heat index approaching 110, it stayed cloudy all day and was actually a nice evening to spend outside. The girls seemed to have fun and it was nice to hang out with the parents casually rather than in the stands or while on a basketball trip.

Sunday we had some friends over for dinner. They have boys M’s and C’s ages and in recent years those gatherings have been a little awkward. These kids have known each other since birth but something about the teenage years turned it weird a couple years back. But everyone was happy and got along last night. We managed to avoid the heavy storms that split the area, although the kids never got into the pool because we could hear thunder in the distance. There was a possible tornado only about two miles from our home. Fortunately it was moving away from us and we were never in any danger.

Today is a big day in our house: M’s 18th birthday! Her sisters have been saying for weeks how weird that sounds to them. For some reason her turning 17 last year seemed weirder than 18. But it is still odd to have an adult child, legally speaking. Especially since she still has a year of high school left. I didn’t turn 18 until after I graduated so that has always seemed like the natural progression to me. You graduate, turn 18, then go to college. Obviously that only works for about a third of the population, but it was my experience and my “normal.”

Fortunately she has matured a lot the past 2–3 years and seems ready to be 18. She still has moments where we smack our foreheads at her lack of common sense or ability to figure things out on her own, but that’s normal. In general she’s a smart, mature, well-adjusted kid that seems comfortable in her own skin and in social settings.

Much of parenthood is spent hoping. Hoping that you are teaching your kids the right things and hoping that they are taking those lessons in. Hoping that they don’t grow up to be shitheads. M’s journey to adulthood is far from over, but I am proud of where she is at at this moment in her life. I’ve always said I wouldn’t be worried about her because, one way or another, she’ll figure out her path. I still feel exactly that way about her.

We had a rough patch, M and I, when she was 14–16ish, and it took awhile to come out of that. But we get along a lot better now than we did a couple years ago (and things weren’t really that bad then) and we enjoy each other’s company and giving each other shit.

We took C and her out for brunch today, then walked around the mall for a bit.[1] I mocked her for being excited about getting a birthday discount at Kendra Scott. We will have a big birthday dinner for her and a group of friends in the next week or so. She is headed to a local lake with friends later today. I imagine the young man she’s been spending some time with will be there as well. Not a bad way to spend your 18th birthday.

C and I went to the orthodontist this morning. She has struggled with her retainer regimen since she got her braces off over a year ago. We’ve already had to have it re-fitted once. Well, she went through a long spell of not wearing it, now it doesn’t fit, and her teeth have moved. So she’s going in Invisalign for the next 4–6 months. Which is lovely. I think she realizes this is her last chance and needs to take better care of her teeth if she doesn’t want her parents to ground her until she goes to college.

  1. L is spending the day with friends at a water park.  ↩

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